


Always Safety in Valor

by DV-Skitz (Skitz_phenom)



Category: Valor Series - Tanya Huff
Genre: Alamber (Valor) - Freeform, Gen, Werst (Valor) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skitz_phenom/pseuds/DV-Skitz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Torin and the crew of the Promise embark on a mission on behalf of the Wardens but what happens when the ship they're supposed to rescue isn't there when they arrive?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always Safety in Valor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [janiejanine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/janiejanine/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, janiejanine! I had a great time revisiting this universe and these characters and I hope this makes you smile.

Any other morning, Torin thinks, tonguing at her implant to stop the horrific ‘noise’ that’s piping through the internal speaker to prod her awake, she might not have minded waking up to something _other_ than reveille. 

Except when that something ‘other’ was di'Taykan electro-synth-pop being blasted through her implant at ear-bleeding decibels.

“Ressk!” She growls out. And it comes out a low vibrato but it still manages to carry as far as she needs it too.

She rolls over in her bunk just as a mottled grey head peeks around the corner into the slightly cordoned off ‘private’ section of the crew quarters. “Yeah, Gunny?”

“Care to tell my why my implant is now playing the worst of Mid Sector Station's Delta-Two-One top forty?”

He holds up his hands, innocently.  “Me? How would I know? Would I do something so foolhardy?” He draws his hands back, buffs his nails against his shirt. “Sounds like something a certain blue-haired hacker-type might be responsible for.”  He’s casual enough as he says it, but Torin knows him well-enough to recognize the subtle tightening around his eyes and ‘just a hair too relaxed’ lift to his nose ridges.  On any other Krai the signs would be invisible; on Ressk’s face – a face she knows probably better than her own - they’re a dead giveaway.

“Pull the other one, Ressk, it’s got bells on.” Not that Torin’s ever been sure what that expression means, but it’s one she stole years ago from Mike Glicksohn and there are times it’s the only apt thing to say.  And since she’s already borrowing from her previous subordinates, Torin takes a page from Private Haysole’s book and yanks the blanket over her head and then rolls back over into its cocooning depths.

“So, not interested in joining us on this lovely morning?”

“Fuk off, Ressk.”

“My, somebody’s crabby this morning.” A second voice joins Ressk’s at the door.  Just what Torin needs: two overly chipper, overly caffeinated Krai pestering her (their last restock & refuel at the station meant a new supply of Sah, not to mention fresh(er) food than they’d had for several weeks).

“Werst, get the fuk out of my room.”

Werst actually has the gall to ‘tsk’ at her.  “Just thought you’d want to know, Gunny, that we’ve reached the coordinates given to us by the Wardens.”

Much as she wants to ignore them, the part of Torin that’s a marine first, and a person second, can’t shirk from her duty (even if she’s not technically a marine anymore).  She tugs the blanket down from over her face and twists her head enough to look over at her crewmates. “And?”

Werst shrugs. “Nothing here. As we expected. Though what they expected us to find since the distress signal was three weeks old...”

“You’ve scanned the area. Completed the entire system sweep?” She starts to do the math in her head. It doesn’t seem possible that they’ve arrived after the Susumi fold _and_ completed the scan of the sector, considering their last known ETA to the coordinates.  Which means…  

She tongues her implant and gets a ping-back, “The time is now eight-hundred hours, thirty-four minutes, seventeen  seco—“ She tongues it off.  And then glares at both of them. “Not only did you reprogram my wakeup call with shitty di’Taykan music, but you reset my wake-up time?”  She keeps her voice deceptively soft.

Ressk still looks nonplussed but Werst, at least, squirms a little. “You needed the sleep, Gunny.” Ressk offers unapologetically.

“With Craig not on board,” Werst begins, but Torin’s outthrust hand stops him.

“You’re mollycoddling me because Craig’s sick?”

Ressk and Werst exchange a look. Ressk offers, “I think so?  But that depends on what mollycoddling means.”

Torin waves them away. “I’ll be right up front. Give me a minute to at least get dressed, would you?”  They both move away from the divider that separates her and Craig’s small space from the rest of the crew cabin. It was Craig’s one insistence when they added the additional modules to the _Promise_ that turned the cramped salvage ship into a slightly less cramped patrol ship. 

Torin hadn’t necessarily cared about the privacy – she was ex-military after all and you saw one di’Taykan _kayti_ , you’d seen them all – but she’d agreed for Craig’s benefit.  She knew it was difficult enough for him to share the ship with _her_ , to say nothing of the addition of three of her ex-unit, plus one rebellious, essentially orphaned di’Taykan.

Craig isn’t on board though. He’d contracted Katrien kit-pox.  Which are highly contagious across most of the Confederacy’s known species and range from merely annoying (in humans) to potentially deadly (especially in the Rakva and, oddly, the Dornigan).  Most of the time the illness stays confined to Katrien offspring on their home world, but the rare case makes it off planet and it spreads like wildfire through the core if appropriate quarantine measures aren’t taken.

She’d left Craig on the station, secured in an isolation pod in the medbay, miserable and itchy.  Torin hadn’t wanted to take the _Promise_ out without him onboard, but they’d received reports of a distress call from the Wardens and they were tasked to investigate.    

And apparently, if Werst’s report is correct, the quadrant where the emergency beacon had been broadcasting is suspiciously empty. Which is the second such occurrence in as many weeks in the same sector.  What’s worrisome is that the area tends to be notorious for ships disappearing once they’ve stayed too long, or strayed too far in the sector.  And they’re sitting still in the middle of it.

If Craig knew where they were he’d be pissed. He’d probably have told the Wardens to kiss his ass and turned down the job.  Torin… couldn’t say no.

The stretch of space has been called the Bermudian Triangulation (which is apparently an allusion to a place on old Earth, known for similar disappearances) and it’s an area that Salvagers know to avoid.   Few will risk it even if the potential haul could set them up for life.

The two most recent reported missing ships are personal space vehicles, likely passenger or pleasure craft.   Several years earlier as many as four different deep space cargo and freight haulers vanished in the vicinity so it’s also been taken off of shipping routes and the first known disappearance was a Navy vessel the size of the _Berganitan_ that was lost with all hands, so even the military avoids it for the same reasons.

Shrugging into her coverall, Torin barely gets the front zipped before she’s heading into the cockpit to see what the situation is. She pulls her hair back – one concession she’s made since ‘retiring’ from the Marines is that she’s let it grow out slightly – and secures it with a decorative clip.  Another of the few, minor luxury items they picked up during their last restock.  Not that Torin’s ever been one for vanity, but it’s kind of nice to have people around to impress other than Craig.

Ressk and Werst are seated in the pilot and copilots seat, sharing a cup of Sah between them using their feet while Ressk is doing something with the navcomm, and Werst looks to be solving a crossword on a slate.

“Where are Mashona and Alamber?”

“Aft,” Werst explains. “Mashona was going to get the kid suited up in case we needed him to go EVA.” He huffs in amusement. “She said he’s gotta do more than work on the comm systems if he wants to earn his keep around here.”

Torin makes a similar noise in reply. “Let me guess. He made the mistake of suggesting _other_ ways he could be of use?”

Werst doesn’t even need to answer that.  He’s a di’Taykan, of _course_ he made the suggestion.

“So, nothing out here, huh?” She asks, coming to stand behind the pilot’s chair, leaning on the back of it.

She sees the back of Ressk’s head shake from side to side. “Nope, Gunny.  At least no sign of any ship, no distress beacons, or anything that might want to call attention to itself. We’ve swept the sector twice. ”

There’s a ‘but’ in his voice, she can hear it.

“What _are_ you reading, Ressk?”

The foot not holding the Sah lifts up and waggles in in the air since both hands are busy on the console. “Not sure, to be honest.  I’m getting just this little creeping noise in the radar system now and again. I can’t pin the serley thing down though.”

Werst reaches over absently and lays a hand over Ressk’s shoulder. “It’s annoying him.”

“Some kind of signal?” Torin asks, throwing out possibilities. “Random background radiation?”

Ressk snorts like those ideas are beneath him. Torin supposes they are. He’s probably thought of and dismissed a half dozen other ideas as well.

“So, what are we doing? We gonna stick around and try to pin this down or get the hell out of a sector of space that’s known for making ships _completely disappear_.” If there’s a bit of a hard bite on the end of that sentence it’s because she really does not want them to vanish.  Less for the sake of her own safety and wellbeing, but more because she’d pretty sure Craig would be quite pissed off to lose both her _and_ his ship (again…).

Ressk’s hands finally come up from their frantic dancing over the console and he shakes them out. “Way ahead of you, Gunny. I’ve just completed the Susumi equations to take us back to our departure point between Paradise and MidSector. Computer is just confirming.”

Torin pats his shoulder just above where Werst’s hand still rests, thumb sweeping back and forth rhythmically. “I know how difficult it must be to let it go, Ressk. But I appreciate it.”

“Yeah well, I learned a while back to not go chasing trouble, Gunny.  I’m curious, but not _that_ curious.” An indicator chimes, confirming their readiness for the Susumi fold.  “We’re ready to go. Looks like it’ll be about six hours, give or take.”

Torin gives a little squeeze before letting her hand fall away. “Take us home, Ressk.”  Which is a silly thing to say, because the _Promise_ is more home to them than either Mid Sector or Paradise Stations, but the jump will put them in familiar space somewhere between them both.

Since she knows that Werst will keep Ressk company while they’re folded into Susumi space without being asked, she’s really not needed up front. “I’m going aft to see if I can talk Binti into letting Alamber out of the suit.”

She heads back to the sound of Werst muttering something that she can’t quite make out, but is probably unflattering towards Alamber (they know better than to mock Mashona).

The sight that greets her in the aft bay (where the Promise’s cargo cages used to be) is certainly one she hadn’t been expecting.  Well, actually, considering how impatient Mashona can get with Alamber’s unending come-ons, it really isn’t that big of a surprise.   Alamber is upside down in the HVA suit, boots mag-locked to the ceiling, and his whole body is contorting and jerking about madly.  Mashona is using some stacked up supply crates as both chair and footrest and calling out bits of completely unhelpful advice.

“C’mon, ‘Lamber, just twist up at your waist and you should be able to reach the release mechanism.”

“You know,” he shoots back, sounding relatively unruffled for all that he’s wriggling around like a H’san after a cheese binge, “this could be interesting if you got yourself suited up, Binti.” He spots Torin and slows his struggles. “Gunny, can you tell Binti to let me down.”

“Mashona?” Torin asks.

One of Binti’s dusky and elegantly sculpted brows lifts. “He wanted to learn the suits, Gunny.” She bares teeth in something that’s not quite a grin and looks extra menacing for the flash of white against cocoa skin.  

“Apparently you wanted to learn the suits, Alamber.  It would’ve been irresponsible of Mashona not to show you everything.”

Alamber grumbles something that’s too soft for Torin to pick up, but could probably easily guess given the context.  Ignoring him for the time being  (hanging upside-down too long can actually fuk with the sensory function of a di’Tayan’s hair, but she knows that Binti knows that, and won’t leave him up there long enough for it to get risky) she sits down on the crate where Binti has her boots kicked up.

“So, just as we suspected, the sector is clear.” She speaks loud enough for them both to hear.

“No sign of the ship that made that distress call then, huh?” Binti frowns when Torin shakes her head. “Are we gonna stick around and investigate?” 

Torin knows she’s not misreading the slight elevation in pitch in Binti’s voice, or the slight sigh of relief she looses when Torin says, “Nope. We’re folding into Susumi space as we speak.   Ressk says we’ve got about six hours or so until we’re back in Mid Sector space.”

“Plans for that time, Gunny?” she asks.

Torin slaps a hand on one of the crates. “Figure we can get this stuff unloaded and stowed.” She shrugs. It’s something that’ll keep them busy.  She’s found, recently, that keeping a crew of six occupied between missions isn’t always easy.  She kind of misses the days when she could just let them loose on a station and deal with the fallout. Granted, Ressk and Werst don’t seem to mind having a little time to themselves now and again, but one of these days she’s afraid Binti is going to strangle Alamber. 

Craig’s glowering has finally quashed the di’Taykan’s amorous affections for Torin, but instead of getting over them completely, he seems to have transferred them to Mashona.  She wonders if he’s ever going to get it into his head that he’s not Binti’s type.  Or gender.  Or species (although, di'Taykan are kind of _everyone'_ s species, by default...)

Knowing Alamber as well as she knows any young and dumb di’Taykan (and Torin’s definitely known a few), it’ll take a while for the lesson to sink in. Still watching his ridiculous attempts to flirt with Mashona while they unload gear (where he alternates between suavely knowing and charmingly innocent), keeps Torin amused for quite some time.

They seem to spend longer in Susumi space than she expects (Ressk had said about six hours, but it’s already been nine).  The thing about folding into it though, is that even though you arrive at your destination exactly when you left, the time it takes to actually get there varies.   Still, something’s pinging her ‘alert meter’, so she closes the program on her slate and heads back up to the cockpit.

She’s about to ask about it when the mottle skin of Ressk’s scalp goes pale and she hears a hissed out, “Fuk.”

“Ressk?”

He doesn’t answer, instead his hands and both feet start flying over the console, the half-empty mug of Sah clattering to the decking.

“Ressk!” She repeats, but this time it’s a command.

It’s Werst who answers, peering down at readouts that Torin can’t see from where she’s standing. “We’re not where we should be.” He lifts his head to look back at her, nostril ridges flaring wide. “Something went wrong with the fold.”

Almost absently Torin pats at her own arms and thighs.  She feels fine… it doesn’t feel like her atoms are being split apart.  Not that she has any idea what a bad Susumi fold would feel like except… well, death.  She doesn’t feel dead.

“Ressk, how is that possible?”

A fist slams on the arm of the pilot’s seat as Ressk growls out, “I don’t know.  It doesn’t make any sense.” He takes a deep breath and then swivels the chair in a circle.  “We’ve come out in a completely unknown sector of space. I…” His hands grasp at air. “I can’t get a reference point.”

Torin knows all too well what that means.   Susumi folds gone wrong can have catastrophic effects. They’re lucky they didn’t end up in the middle of a planet.  But still, without a reference point to build the equations off of, they can't go back.

She tries to stay calm.  Freaking out isn’t going to help anyone. “How did it happen? I thought the computer checked your calculations?”

Ressk uses his whole body for the shrug. “I don’t know.  I checked the math. The computer checked the math.  I monitored everything through the whole time in Susumi space just like I always do. Everything looked good. By the numbers.  We should’ve jumped exactly where we were supposed to.  I just,” he flails limbs towards the console, “checked the math again. It reads right.”

“And yet…”

“And yet, we’re nowhere near the Station.  I can’t get a read on where we are.”  He’s pissed, and guilty and Torin’s going to keep all appendages away from his mouth considering the way he’s biting off his words.

Torin bounces a fist off the wall comms, activating ship-wide. “Alamber, Binti, get up here!”

Werst clears his throat. “Uh, that’s not all, Gunny.”

“What now?”

Before he can answer the collision sensor begins blaring.  She pushes herself up against a bulkhead, bracing her body, but the expected jolt of impact doesn’t happen. Instead, Werst executes a quick maneuver that takes the _Promise_ around the aft of the ship that suddenly appeared on the view screen.

“What the hell was that?” She’s not panicked, not yet, but she’s certainly starting to feel something like anxiety clawing at her gut.

The door behind her hisses open and Alamber and Mishona scramble in.  The cockpit is barely roomy enough for three (especially since the co-pilot chair was installed); with five they’re practically sardines.

“What’s up, Gunny? Why is the proximity alarm going off?”

 She doesn’t answer Binti immediately. “Alamber, swap with Werst. I want you up there reviewing Ressk’s Susumi equations.”  Ressk grunts but doesn’t argue.  It’s not that she doesn’t believe him, but she knows he’ll feel better to know he’s right.  While Werst and Alamber swap spots (thankfully, for the sake of her obvious mood, Alamber avoids any groping when he shimmies past) she fills them in. “We’re not where we’re supposed to be in space. We’re off the charts. Something went wrong with the fold.”

Binti’s skin pales like cream being stirred into cocoa and her mouth falls open.  “How the hell are we still alive then?”

Torin can only shrug.

“We’ve also got other ships out here, Gunny.” Werst reports.  “It wasn’t just that big bugger we almost collided with. Sensors are picking up multiple craft.”

“Are we getting anything from the ships?” Torin asks.

“Negative,” Ressk reports. He brings up the sensor scan on the view screen.  There are multiple red shapes against the black on blue grid pattern, all around the green blip that is the _Promise_. “I’m reading eleven, no twelve, different vessels out there, but I’m getting no activity from any of them.”

“Keep scanning,” she instructs. “And why didn’t we get an alert sooner when we almost crashed into that first one?”  The sensitivity of the Promise’s proximity sensors were vital when it had come to salvage work.  A piece of drifting debris the size of a slate should’ve set them off.

“Susumi bow wake, Gunny,” Ressk explains, though he sounds half distracted by whatever information he’s getting from his scans.  “Kept us blind to her until the wake dissipated. Don’t know how we managed to come out that close and not wreck either the _Promise_ or the ship was almost ran into.” There are volumes he’s not speaking, Torin knows, about the likelihood of that actually being possible.

A long moment of silence falls, broken only by the sounds of multiple digits on keys and Ressk’s chair squeaking as he twists enough to get his foot up to one of the panels.

Alamber’s hair alerts her before he speaks, going limp, and when he turns his eyes are ice-pale.  “Ressk’s calculations check out, Gunny.”  

Which means…

Well, it means they’re still at square one. In unknown space, for unknown reasons surrounded by unknown ships. 

“Fukking hell.” Ressk breathes out. “Gunny, you’re not going to believe this.”

Torin bites down on the urge to groan that she’s already had more than her fair share of the unbelievable for one day.  “What is it?”

Ressk points to the screen where he’s brought another image up. It’s the ship they nearly collided with. “That’s the _Sargara-West_.”

“Fukking hell,” Torin echoes, because of all the things she expected to hear, that was probably the last on the list.  It wouldn’t even have made the list.

“Who’s the _Sargara-West_?” Alamber asks, and it actually takes Torin a moment to remember that the reason he doesn’t know that is because he’s not an ex-marine.   Funny how her mind has slotted him into place as one of her own.

“She was a Navy vessel that disappeared over twenty years ago,” Mashona explains before Torin can. “Folded into Susumi space and was never heard from again. She was assumed lost with all hands.”

Ressk picks up the thread. “No one’s ever known what went wrong, but the story of the _Sagara-West_ has since served as an object lesson as to why you should always double and triple check your Susumi equations.”

Alamber gestures towards the screen. “And now she’s just floating out here in this unknown sector of space?  Well that’s pretty fukkin’ weird.”

Torin snorts out a laugh, because… well, it _is_ pretty fukkin’ weird.  She coughs to cover it up, although she catches Werst’s answering grin.  “Are you reading any life signs aboard?”

“Nope.” Ressk’s hands trail along the controls briefly and the image changes, now showing the readouts from his scan of the ship. “I’ve got an energy reading, but no life.  No life signs from any of the ships, actually.”

“What’s the energy reading?” Torin asks. “Couldn’t be a distress beacon after all this time, could it?”

Ressk shrugs. “Logically, I’d say no, Gunny.  There shouldn’t be any way that she’s still capable of transmitting after all this time.  But it’s coming in clear and with a distinctive pattern to it.”

“Anything else from the rest of the ships? Are they all missing Confederacy vessels?”

“Ten of them are dead in space. No readings whatsoever.   They’re various models across known species including two other Human, three di’Tayan, and one each Dornigan, Krai, Katrien and Ciptran.  The eleventh is a H’san personal transport.” He turns to fix Torin with significantly widened nose ridges. “ _That_ one is the ship that was broadcasting the distress signal we were sent to investigate and it’s still transmitting.”

Torin slumps back against the bulkhead, giving herself just a few more inches of breathing room as she tries to take stock.  The _Sagara-West_ , whole and undamaged, in the middle of an uncharted part of space, and surrounded by other ships that are equally abandoned.   A H’san pleasure craft equally abandoned and still broadcasting a signal.  The H’san ship should be her first target, but the _Sagara-West_ had been carrying a full compliment of Marines.  If she can bring back answers (she pushes aside any thoughts of ‘if they get back’ to be dealt with later), she might be able to put those ghosts to rest.

“Looks like you’re going to get that suit practice after all, Alamber.  Binti, Werst, Alamber, I want you all suited up within ten.” 

The di’Taykan startles, hair whipping back and forth as he turns. “Me, Gunny? You sure you want me out there on this.”  His usual air of ‘more di’Tayan than though’ is nowhere to be seen and he looks startled to be included.

“I need Ressk to stay here and keep working the computer issue.  Maybe he can get to the bottom of why our fold went to shit.” Alamber starts to protest, but Torin cuts him off. “And he knows the systems on the _Promise_ better than you. So I need someone out there,” she waves towards the view screen which is once again showing the space outside the ship, “who can support me if we need to start looking in the computers on those other ships.”

Alamber nods. “Got it, Gunny.”

He follows Werst and Mashona as they make their way aft to suit up.   She waits until they’re clear of the cockpit and then leans down to address Ressk. “Can you figure it out?” she asks, softly.

Ressk bares his teeth.  She’d take offense but she knows that he’s directing the expression at the ships’ computers rather than her. “I’ll do what I can in here, Gunny.  You stay safe out there.”

“I’ll do what I can,” she echoes, grimly, and then heads for the back of the ship.

Torin is quite practiced with getting suited up fast, and she expects the same of her crew, so it’s less than ten minutes before they’re all at the airlock. She’s got Ressk on the comms of her implant. “With the _Sagara-West_ powered down, we’re not going to be able to dock using the umbilical,” he explains. “So I’m going to get the _Promise_ as close as I can, line up near their emergency hatch, and you’re going to have to use the thrusters in the suits to get there.”

“Roger that, Ressk.  I’ll keep comms open so you can track our progress.  Alert me if you find anything.”

“Understood, Gunny.  Depressurizing airlock, now.”  There’s the hiss of air being evacuated from the small airlock and then, “Opening outer door,” and the external hatch opens.  Torin pushes out into space.  The others follow in measured beats - wait five H’sans and the push off - until they’re all behind her.  For safety’s sake, she’s got them all tethered on a line. They can quick release if need be, but she doesn’t like the idea of anyone free-floating in unknown space. 

Ressk is as good as his word, and has brought the Promise almost dangerously close to the other ship.  It’s only the matter of crossing a few hundred feet of space to reach it. She engages her boot thrusters in little bursts, ordering the others to do the same.  For his first time EVA, Alamber doesn’t seem to be having any trouble (though, she put him between Mashona and Werst, just in case) and he remembers to lock down his mag-boots when they reach the hull.

“Alamber, think you can get us in?” There’s an external access panel next to the circular docking hatch. She’d prefer not to have to damage the _Sagara-West_ , but she’s got charges in her belt if they need to blow the door.

“Got it, Gunny.” Alamber does a passable job of ‘walking’ across the surface of the ship’s hull, though his rhythm of releasing and then reactivating the magnetics isn’t all that smooth.  He looks like someone fighting their way through the sucking pull of quicksand.  Fortunately his skills at hacking the access panel are much smoother and he alerts them to the hatch opening within a few minutes.

They drop into the ship.

Inside, it’s eerily reminiscent of the _Berganitan_ and Torin hates the creeping feeling down the back of her spine as they slowly float down the empty corridors towards the bridge.  A ship like this shouldn’t be empty.  It should be bustling with Navy in their grey utilitarian grey uniforms, and vacuum Jockeys chewing sim-sticks, and loud with Marine-Navy banter.  The lack of movement and light and life are eerie and from Werst and Mashona’s silence, she knows she’s not the only one feeling it.

Progress is slow going because there are a lot of bulkhead doors between the aft docking hatch and the bridge, but Alamber makes quick work of getting the doors open.  Eventually they get through the final bulkhead and float onto the bridge. 

“Ressk,” Torin reports, “we’ve reached the Bridge.  As you reported: no signs of life anywhere on board. No sign of the missing crew, either.” She’d been half afraid that they’d board the ship to find the remains of the _Sagara-West’s_ crew, preserved in the vacuum of space.  While it’s a relief to not be surrounded by dead bodies, it only deepens the mystery of just what happened here.

“Got it, Gunny.” Ressk replies. “The source of the signal is definitely coming from your location.  Tell Alamber to check the main console.  There should be power.”

She repeats Ressk’s suggestion. “Alamber, see what you can find out.”

“On it!” He drifts over and locks himself down next to the large, curving bank of main control console.  “Huh.”

Torin uses the back of the captain’s chair to push herself over to join him. “What’ve you got?”

“Pre-recorded message.” Alamber explains. “There’s something powering this console enough that it’s continuing to broadcast that signal, and there’s a pre-recorded message encoded as well.” He looks over at her. “Should I play it?”

Torin narrows her eyes.  Even through the plexi-clear faceplate she can see his eyes go light and then dark.

“Right,” he chuckles sheepishly. “I’ll record it as it plays back as well. Patching it through to all comms.” He activates something and a voice sounds in Torin’s ear.

 

> _Attention, this is the Confederation ship Sagara-West, Captain James reporting. It is the eleventh day of the sixth month, Confederation twelve thousand, four hundred and eight-nine.   Forty-two days ago my ship folded into Susumi space and when we came out, we were not at our expected coordinates.  We can find no explanation for this occurrence.  Our computers and some of the best pilots in the Confederation have confirmed that there was no error in our calculations._
> 
> _Since our arrival in this part of space, we’ve tried to work out a way back, to no avail. Without reference coordinates, we’re floating aimless.  We’ve got supplies to last us approximately two more weeks.  Just two days ago, we were contacted by an unknown species.  They call themselves the Deroth.  They match no known Confederation species or Other that we’ve ever heard of.  They look a little bit like the H’san, but without the ears._
> 
> _The Deroth intercepted our distress call transmission.  Apparently their home world isn’t too far from here.  They have limited interplanetary travel, no Susumi drive to speak of.  They have offered us refuge.   With our supply situation looking worse by the day, and no hope of getting this ship back to known space, we’ve accepted their offer._
> 
> _If this message is recovered, know that the crew of the Sagara-West, and the entirety of Confederated Marine Corp. Birath’ty Company have agreed to abandon ship.   The coordinates of the Deroth home world are encoded in this transmission, as is a list of all personnel, Marine and crew on board this ship._
> 
> _If you find this message and can take word back to the Confederation, please let them know we’re alive and we’d have come home if we could’ve.  If you’re stuck here, like us, and the Deroth haven’t contacted you yet, you can reach out to them per the enclosed transmission frequency._
> 
> _God-speed.   Confederation Naval Captain Collin James, signing out._

“Ressk?” Torin snaps out as soon as the transmission ends.

“Way ahead of you, Gunny.” He replies immediately. “I’ve got the coordinates. Extrapolating based on local area scans.”

“What do we do?” Werst asks. He’s moved to stand next to Torin and he places a hand on her arm.  It’s only a faint pressure through the layers of the suits, but she appreciates the gesture.

That’s the question, isn’t it? 

The part of her that will always be a Marine wants to find this Deroth planet and find her people. Navy, Marines, it doesn’t matter. They’re all part of the Confederation military – that makes them family in a way that nothing else can.

At the same time, the part of her that’s now acting on behalf of the Wardens knows that she should report back what she’s found as soon as she can.  Of course, that would mean getting back to known space…   

Befriending a new species could be big news for the Confederation.  Granted they’re no longer at war with the Primacy, but contact with a species this far out in the uncharted could be a huge boon (again, if they can find a way to traverse the distance) in many ways.  First contact is something that the Elder races excel at.  Torin and her rag-tag crew aren’t exactly well-versed in diplomacy.

There are too many unknowns.  She needs to consider all the angles carefully.

For now, she’ll focus on what she can directly deal with. “Ressk?”

There’s a moment of silence and then he comes back. “Extrapolation is complete. The planet coordinates are only a couple of hours away.  I’ve also got the channels for contacting these Deroth directly.”

“Hold off on doing anything right now. We’re heading back to the _Promise_.”

She holds off on giving the order, because Ressk keeps talking. "Before you do, Gunny, you should know that I think I've figured out why these ships are out here. I'm still digging into our computer troubles.  Remember that wierd little signal I couldn't get a read on before we folded?"

Torin nods and then remembers herself. "Yeah. What was it?"

"I think that signal emenates from this point in space. From a quantum singularity. On a hunch I started scanning for it again, and I'm picking it up.  I don't know for sure, Gunny, but I think we could be looking at a signal that's bouncing through a wormhole."

"A wormhole? Quantum singularities?" Torin echoes.  She's heard of them, but astrophysics was never her field of expertise. 

Ressk makes an assenting noise. "I don't know if I can make heads or toes of all this serley data yet, but I think there's something about the signal that messes with Susumi space itself. It's not the drive or the calculations. It's like Susumi space is being forced to fold into this space, like it's being drawn here. Honestly, Torin, it's a bit beyond me.  I'm sure some folks in the Science Division will have a field day with it, though." His amused huff of breath echoes in her mike. 

"So is that what happened to us?"

Ressk's silence is telling. "No," he says shortly, after a long moment, like he's trying to decide that he's sure. "No, I don't think we were pulled here by the same thing. I'm still... looking into what happened to us."

There's something he's not saying, but Torin knows it's likely because he doesn't have all the facts yet. He'll tell her when he's sure. "Roger that, Ressk. We're returning to the _Promise_."

They make their way back through the ship moving faster this time since the doors are still open.  Torin feels a momentary pang at not closing them behind her, leaving the ship open to space, but she’s got other, more immediate concerns.   There are Confederation people out here, possibly alive and well on an alien planet! 

Foregoing the care she normally takes when she’s got people with her, Torin just orders Mashona, Werst and Alamber to secure their tether and then she hard-accelerates towards the Promise.  It’s a move she’s had practice with, and she’s got the drag of three people on the line behind her to slow her down, but she still comes perilously close to slamming into the outer hull of the ship. 

When they get into the Airlock and it repressurizes around them, she notices that Alamber’s eyes are looking rather pale (well, paler than usual) and when he pulls off his helm his hair is a halo of pale blue.  “Sorry,” she says, feeling slightly chastened.  Mashona and Werst are used to the way she acts in high-stress situations. Alamber doesn’t have that knowledge and she keeps forgetting.  

“S’okay, Gunny. Just… uh, takes a little getting used.”

Werst slaps him on the back. “That was nothing, kid. You’re just lucky you’ve never had to ride suited up while in a cargo cage with Other’s gunning for your ass.”

Alamber’s eyes go even wider.

“They’re called the Primacy, Werst,” Torin corrects him absently, already shrugging out of her suit.

“Eh, back then they were still the Others. And they _were_ gunning for us.”

She really can’t argue with that.

They finish getting de-suited and rejoin Ressk in the cockpit.   Torin knows immediately that he’s found something by the way he’s sitting in the pilot’s chair, arms crossed, feet gripping each other and unmoving, nose ridges opening and closing in fast, fluttery pulses.   She nearly stumbles to a stop and gets almost knocked over by the others crashing into her from behind.

That gets a reaction from Ressk. He slaps a palm over his face, draws it down slowly and shakes his head. “You guys are better than fukkin’ Mictok comedy vids.”

Considering the Mictok version of humor is an odd sort of spider-slapstick (lots of legs scrabbling on ice, and upside-down arachnid bodies flailing at the air as they try to right themselves) that is equal parts amusing as it is horrifying, Torin can only grin. “We aim to please.  Now tell me what you’ve found.” She takes a seat in the co-pilots chair, only to make room so the others can file in.

“I’ve got two things, Gunny.  First, I’ve been able determine the cause of the Susumi failure. I know why we ended up out here, and I can reverse engineer the data to get us a source-point for a return trajectory.” Despite the nature of his news, it’s delivered in an oddly flat tone.

“But that’s great news, Ressk!” Torin enthuses. They can get _home_.   They can take the information they’ve learned about the _Sagara-West_ and all the other ships back with them.  The others react accordingly, with sighs of relief and small noises of exultation.

Ressk isn’t smiling though. Torin’s smile falls away. “What else?”

“It’s in the computer, Gunny.”

Torin swallows.  “ _What’s_ in the computer, Ressk?”

He hands over a slate. “The reason the computer showed the calculations as correct is because they were. The error occurred in the drive itself. Something fed the drive different data than what I programmed in. It never went through the computer system.”

“ _Something_?” But even as she asks, Torin feels a shudder creep up her spine.

Ressk nods.

“But, we’ve scanned everything!” Torin protests. “We’ve checked this ship out from top to bottom. There’s no fukking way that those serley plastic bastards could be onboard.”

Behind her, Mashona groans.

Torin jerks her head around. “What?”

“We resupplied, Gunny.  At Mid Sector.”

Shit. And Torin hadn’t ordered them to scan every crate and every item as they came on board.  She’d just taken on supplies, like she and Craig had done so many times when it was just the two of them running salvage.

“Could’ve been anything we brought on board,” Werst says softly.

Alamber frowns. “You mean those grey plastic aliens? We’ve got some on board?” His powder-blue hair wavers from side to side, as if it’s on the lookout.

Torin slumps forward in her seat. “Apparently.” She scrubs a hand over her face. “And apparently I’m never going to get to do anything in this damn universe that isn’t orchestrated by those serley fukkers.”

“Least we can get home,” Werst offers.

“Yeah,” Mashona agrees. “They must’ve wanted to make sure.”

Werst snickers. “Maybe it’s their way of making it up to you, Gunny?”

“What? After screwing me over time and time again, this time they decided to do something nice?”

Werst shrugs.

“They _did_ blow the clamps on Vrijheid,” Alamber says. “Maybe this is just another way they’re trying to help?”  

Torin looks up to the curving roof of the cockpit. She raises her voice, not quite yelling, “Well they can stop being so fukking helpful. I can manage my life fine on my own.”

“So what’s the plan then, Gunny?” Ressk asks after an appropriately long moment of silence for Torin’s lost sanity. “We gonna stick around here, maybe try to find the crew of the _Sagara-West_?  Contact these Deroth?”

Torin thinks on that a moment, armed with the new knowledge of just what the motivation of the grey plastic might’ve been.  Maybe it really was trying to do something nice…  Maybe it’s trying to make up for all of the crap that’s happened due to its interference…  Maybe the H’san will give up cheese…

“Much as I’d like to do that, Ressk,” and she really, really would, “I think we need to take that information with us and head home.  If we _can_ get back, then we’ll have the spatial data to pass over to the Confederacy. Then they can get back here with the diplomats and the ships big enough to carry the crews of all of these vessels.”

“Copy that, Gunny.” He spins his chair around, all four extremities finding their places on the console. “Ready to fold back into Susumi space at your orders.”

“Binti, Alamber. Why don’t you two take some down time. Get some rest.  You guys can spell Ressk and Werst during the Susumi travel.”

Mashona nods and pushes Alamber out of the cockpit.  Voice filtering back from the short corridor, Torin hears him make an unlikely suggestion about ‘down time’.  It’s followed by a rather high-pitched yelp.

Smiling, she stands and waves for Werst to take her seat. 

“This’ll be pretty big news when we get back, eh, Gunny?” He says offhandedly as he settles in the chair and grabs up Torin’s abandoned slate in one foot.

It’s going to be a _huge_ story when they get back.  Long lost ships, new species, travel to unknown sectors of space... Just when she finally dropped out of the limelight and her face isn’t showing up on the news broadcasts all over the Sector stations.  

Oh gods, she’d promised Presit exclusive rights to anything newsworthy that happens in her life.  Of course, she’d never planned on being newsworthy again when she made that promise. There’s a dull throbbing in her temple that’s growing stronger.

“Torin,” Ressk’s chiding voice breaks into her increasingly frantic thoughts. “If you keep that up, one of you is coming back damaged. And I’m not sure which one Craig would be more upset about being dented, you or the _Promise_.”

And that’s when she realizes that the pounding in her head is, in part, due to the fact that she’s banging it into the bulkhead, repeatedly.  She sighs and smooths a hand over the metal almost apologetically.

“Take us home, Ressk.”

“Roger that, Gunny.”

She takes a deep breath and straightens. “I’m heading back to my bunk.  If you wake me up with di’Taykan synth-pop again, I’m going to eat your fingers.” To a Krai, it’s a credible threat.

Ressk just chuckles. “Understood, Gunny.”

As Torin makes her way back to the crew quarters, suddenly desperate to fall into her and Craig’s bunk and sleep for a week, her hair comes loose to fall around her shoulders.  She reaches back to readjust the clip pinning it back, only to come up empty handed…


End file.
